In the D\u00e1il today Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, raised the arrests of 12 Basque lawyers with the Minister of State for European Affairs, Dara Murphy.<\/p>\n
Crowe called on the Minister to use his influence to express concern about the arrests and negative impact this will inevitably have on the fledgling Basque Peace Process.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cLast week\u2019s arrest of 16 individuals, including 12 lawyers representing Basque political prisoners, added a new element to the continued refusal of the Spanish state to engage constructively in a Basque peace process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe arrests, which came just days after a huge demonstration in Bilbao where more than 80,000 people took to the streets to support the rights of political prisoners, are clearly designed to be provocative and have all the hallmarks of a securocrat agenda that opposes the Basque Peace Process.<\/p>\n
\u201cLawyers engaged in sensitive or politically motivated cases must be allowed to carry out their work without state interference, intimidation, or the fear of possible arrest.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the history of the peace process in the North, I called for the Irish Government \u00a0to appeal to the Spanish Government to put aside its own party political difficulties to promote and support a meaningful process of dialogue in order to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Basque Country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the Minister confirmed the Government\u2019s support for any moves towards a peace process, he sadly didn\u2019t signal the Government\u2019s willingness to engage with the Spanish Government on this issue or call for the release of the lawyers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will continue to raise this issue with the Irish Government in an effort to try ensure that they play a more pro-active role in bringing about a sustainable peace process in the Basque Country with the involvement of the Spanish Government.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the D\u00e1il today Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, raised the arrests of 12 Basque lawyers with the Minister of State for European Affairs, Dara Murphy. Crowe called on the Minister to use his influence to express concern about the arrests and negative impact this will inevitably have on the fledgling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,50,148,117,37,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basque-country","category-human-rights","category-peace-process","category-prisoners","category-reconciliation","category-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2019,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions\/2019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}